Frustrations with battery connectors and lack of standards

[Neutronium95]

When I got started with electronic deployment, I got a Stratologger, and then got some cheap 2S lipos to power it. They came with a JST PH 2.0 connector, which worked fine with the charger I bought. Later on I got a Featherweight GPS and some Altus Metrum EasyMinis. Both of those units come with, or are intended to use 1S lipo batteries with JST PH 2.0 connectors. There's just one slight wrinkle. They have the opposite polarity!!! Apparently the hobby RC community, and the hobby electronics community both use batteries with the same connector, just wired opposite each other. Apparently the Featherweight and Altus Metrum electronics were designed around the batteries from Sparkfun, while most of the batteries and chargers on the market with that connector are wired with the opposite polarity. It's completely ridiculous, and I don't think that there's much that can be done about it, beyond being paranoid about polarity when wiring up avionics.

 

[Buckeye]

I hear ya, bro. Not only are the connectors not standard, the size and shape of the batteries vary a lot. This can wreak havoc on your av-bay design, especially when the LiPo you like disappears off the market (which happens a lot) and you need to replace it with something else.

Sometimes, the good ol' 9V is hard to beat.

Word of caution on powering the SLCF with a 2S lipo. You may exceed the recommended firing current as I did here. Maybe it wasn't a big problem, but I added some resistors just in case.

 

[Neutronium95]

I hear ya, bro. Not only are the connectors not standard, the size and shape of the batteries vary a lot. This can wreak havoc on your av-bay design, especially when the LiPo you like disappears off the market (which happens a lot) and you need to replace it with something else.

Sometimes, the good ol' 9V is hard to beat.

Word of caution on powering the SLCF with a 2S lipo. You may exceed the recommended firing current as I did here. Maybe it wasn't a big problem, but I added some resistors just in case.

I haven't had any overcurrent problems with my Stratologgers yet. I'm also using them a lot less, since it's so hard to get them. They're gradually getting replaced by other altimeters in my future builds.

 

[watheyak]

I feel this pain. I have a bunch of 260mah lipos with differing polarities for my Altus, Featherwright and other electronics. And those 260s are out of stock everywhere but the place I found a couple days ago. SpeedyFPV for the win.

It occured to me a while ago that small lipos are actually cheaper than a 9v. But they both have their place. If a 9v fits, they're easier and less stress.

 

[Neutronium95]

I feel this pain. I have a bunch of 260mah lipos with differing polarities for my Altus, Featherwright and other electronics. And those 260s are out of stock everywhere but the place I found a couple days ago. SpeedyFPV for the win.

I am seriously considering rewiring my Altus batteries to match the polarity of my other batteries. Or just tossing everything else that uses that connector and not modifying the Altus batteries. Not sure yet.

 

[OZRoc]

I've replaced all my lipo battery & altimeter power connectors with these from Doghouse Rocketry (Binder Design)

Much easier to use. I got the connectors only. No wires. A bit fiddly but great with the right crimper.
Cheers, Mark

 

[kjhambrick]

I give up ... how does one determine the polarity of the JST male connector on a 1S LiPo Battery ?

Thanks !

-- kjh

 

[cls]

I give up ... how does one determine the polarity of the JST male connector on a 1S LiPo Battery ?

there's a red + and a black - wire, and a nib on the JST so it only plugs in one way. then you gotta look at the board it goes in to, read the schematic, look for the ground plane layer of the circuit board, reverse engineer the whole thing. every time.

 

[Donnager]

there's a red + and a black - wire, and a nib on the JST so it only plugs in one way. then you gotta look at the board it goes in to, read the schematic, look for the ground plane layer of the circuit board, reverse engineer the whole thing. every time.

I got a pack of JST connectors and pulled/swapped all the pin wires to make them the same as the Altus stuff, rather than RC, just to keep everything consistent. I note on the bag if they have been modified.

But, yeah, I still check everything, including the battery, always. I haven't seen a backward polarity Altus battery plug yet, but....

 

[mtnmanak]

This is the result of various industries using JST connectors in ways that they were not originally designed for.

The PH series of connectors, in particular, was designed as a relatively low voltage, compact, cheap multi-pin connector option for connecting data cables to PCBs. So, there is no way for JST to set a standard of polarity for a connector that was not originally designed as a cable-to-cable battery connector.

https://www.jst.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ePH.pdf
When industries (RC, IoT, etc), started using PH connectors for battery connections, they just came up with some de facto standards. So, the polarity for an RC product is usually the same, but the polarity for an IoT product may be different.

It is easy to swap the polarity on the connectors. Here is a good page from Particle on how to do it:

https://docs.particle.io/hardware/power/batteries/
I have fried more than my share of devices, batteries and chargers along the way because I forgot to check the polarity. Not a big deal if you cook a $10 charger or ruin a $5 battery, but it really sucks if you destroy an expensive Featherweight tracker.

Outside of money lost, there is also a real safety issue. It is easy to end up with a LiPo fire if you connect the battery with the wrong polarity - especially during charging.

 

[kjhambrick]

there's a red + and a black - wire, and a nib on the JST so it only plugs in one way. then you gotta look at the board it goes in to, read the schematic, look for the ground plane layer of the circuit board, reverse engineer the whole thing. every time.

Thanks @cls but I was wondering about the male JST's on my 1S, 150 mAh Blue Raven batteries.

LiPo's are new since I left 20-some years ago,

I need to read @mtnmanak's link to learn more.

Thanks again !

-- kjh

Are the tiny white male JST connectors keyed with a nib to prevent reversed polarity?

 

[mh9162013]

I got into R/C years ago, when there were three main connectors on the market: Deans, Anderson Power Pole and Tamiya. I chose to use Deans (regular and Micro) for all my electronic needs, so I learned early on to replace any stock connector with Deans.

QED: Pick a standard and use it, then you won't care if there's a battery connector standard or not.

 

[Adrian A]

Thanks @cls but I was wondering about the male JST's on my 1S, 150 mAh Blue Raven batteries.

LiPo's are new since I left 20-some years ago,

I need to read @mtnmanak's link to learn more.

Thanks again !

-- kjh

Are the tiny white male JST connectors keyed with a nib to prevent reversed polarity?

View attachment 592988

Those 1.25mm connectors are more standardized. It’s the 2.5mm ones where you can find batteries with both polarities.

 

[kjhambrick]

Whew !

Thanks Adrian.

-- kjh

 

[cerving]

I share your pain with the connectors. There IS a reason for them, however... different connectors are rated for different amounts of current. JST-PH: 1 Amp, JST-RCY: 3 Amps, XT-30: 30 Amps, XT-60: 60 Amps. These are continuous current ratings... you can go 2 or 3 times that for a short period of time (i.e. the time that it takes for an ematch to fire). The JST-RCY has become kind of a defacto standard for a lot of rocketry electronics because it is relatively small compared to some of the others, and it can handle "enough" current (i.e. 10A peaks).

You will find that batteries have whatever connector and wire gauge for the application they were designed for (i.e. XT-60 for some of the large 6-cell R/C batteries). The fact that we are using them for a much lower current application than what they were designed for isn't going to persuade the manufacturers to put JST-RCY's on a 3000 mAH battery... it's easier just to lop off the big connector and put a JST-RCY pigtail on them.

 

[mtnmanak]

it's easier just to lop off the big connector and put a JST-RCY pigtail on them.

PSA - I realize Cris was just saying "remove the big connector", but, for anyone that may not have done this before, make sure you don't just grab your wire cutters and cut the connector off. If you cut both wires at the same time, you most likely will short the battery and that would not be good. Cut the negative wire first, then cut the positive wire. Probably this is common knowledge to people on this forum, but you only have to make this mistake once to know not to do it again.

 

[cerving]

PSA - I realize Cris was just saying "remove the big connector", but, for anyone that may not have done this before, make sure you don't just grab your wire cutters and cut the connector off. If you cut both wires at the same time, you most likely will short the battery and that would not be good. Cut the negative wire first, then cut the positive wire. Probably this is common knowledge to people on this forum, but you only have to make this mistake once to know not to do it again.

Good safety practice is to cut ONE leg of the connector off, slide on a piece of heat shrink, solder the one leg of the new connector on, shrink the tubing, THEN repeat for the other leg. That 100% prevents any chance of shorting the battery leads.

 

[DaHabes]

I feel this pain. I have a bunch of 260mah lipos with differing polarities for my Altus, Featherwright and other electronics. And those 260s are out of stock everywhere but the place I found a couple days ago. SpeedyFPV for the win.

It occured to me a while ago that small lipos are actually cheaper than a 9v. But they both have their place. If a 9v fits, they're easier and less stress.

Yeah, but 9v don't last that long, aren't rechargeable and add **** to the landfill. The last time I looked the number of alkali e batteries used worldwide in a year was in the tens of billions, all throw away. Not very Earth friendly. My LiPo's will last for years if I take care of them.

 

[DaHabes]

I've replaced all my lipo battery & altimeter power connectors with these from Doghouse Rocketry (Binder Design)
View attachment 592978
Much easier to use. I got the connectors only. No wires. A bit fiddly but great with the right crimper.
Cheers, Mark

Good idea. I'll keep that in mind.

 

[DaHabes]

there's a red + and a black - wire, and a nib on the JST so it only plugs in one way. then you gotta look at the board it goes in to, read the schematic, look for the ground plane layer of the circuit board, reverse engineer the whole thing. every time.

Nope. Red and black don't mean beans when the polarity is opposite. You need to use a DVM.

 

[Art Upton]

I haven't had any overcurrent problems with my Stratologgers yet. I'm also using them a lot less, since it's so hard to get them. They're gradually getting replaced by other altimeters in my future builds.

I found it easy to stock up on extra stratologgers, I have always liked Peter's designs. I have the one in my ISP 65 D-region rocket I flew at NSL 2018 in Geneseo and two others in plastic bags after that I got along with a beeper and a few other things ....

 

[Neutronium95]

I found it easy to stock up on extra stratologgers, I have always liked Peter's designs. I have the one in my ISP 65 D-region rocket I flew at NSL 2018 in Geneseo and two others in plastic bags after that I got along with a beeper and a few other things ....

In recent years they've been barely available. Every few months they'll be in stock, and then sell out in an hour or less.

 

[Art Upton]

In recent years they've been barely available. Every few months they'll be in stock, and then sell out in an hour or less.

Yes I discovered that due to Tarc and USLI teams. I found a time slot and bought 2

 

[BEC]

When I got started with electronic deployment, I got a Stratologger, and then got some cheap 2S lipos to power it. They came with a JST PH 2.0 connector, which worked fine with the charger I bought. Later on I got a Featherweight GPS and some Altus Metrum EasyMinis. Both of those units come with, or are intended to use 1S lipo batteries with JST PH 2.0 connectors. There's just one slight wrinkle. They have the opposite polarity!!! Apparently the hobby RC community, and the hobby electronics community both use batteries with the same connector, just wired opposite each other. Apparently the Featherweight and Altus Metrum electronics were designed around the batteries from Sparkfun, while most of the batteries and chargers on the market with that connector are wired with the opposite polarity. It's completely ridiculous, and I don't think that there's much that can be done about it, beyond being paranoid about polarity when wiring up avionics.

Yes, RC has gone one way, electronics hobbyists have gone the other. This is why, since I have some electric RC experience (well, since the early 1980s), when I built my Eggtimer IONs I put the socket in the opposite way Cris calls out in the instructions..so the are compatible with batteries (and chargers!) I had.

I got into R/C years ago, when there were three main connectors on the market: Deans, Anderson Power Pole and Tamiya. I chose to use Deans (regular and Micro) for all my electronic needs, so I learned early on to replace any stock connector with Deans.

QED: Pick a standard and use it, then you won't care if there's a battery connector standard or not.

Yes. I went with Powerpoles (which were being sold initially into the RC market by John Sermos) for anything needing 10A and up, and mini-Deans for the small stuff. At that time the XT type connectors did not exist. Consequently a bunch of my GSE also has Powerpoles for connectors and I change the connectors on the batteries used for my launch equipment to Powerpoles, regardless of what comes on them and/or make XT to Powerpole adapters.

Good safety practice is to cut ONE leg of the connector off, slide on a piece of heat shrink, solder the one leg of the new connector on, shrink the tubing, THEN repeat for the other leg. That 100% prevents any chance of shorting the battery leads.

YES!!!

 

[watheyak]

Yeah, but 9v don't last that long, aren't rechargeable and add **** to the landfill. The last time I looked the number of alkali e batteries used worldwide in a year was in the tens of billions, all throw away. Not very Earth friendly. My LiPo's will last for years if I take care of them.

Good point!

 

[user 30299]

Yeah, but 9v don't last that long, aren't rechargeable and add **** to the landfill. The last time I looked the number of alkali e batteries used worldwide in a year was in the tens of billions, all throw away. Not very Earth friendly. My LiPo's will last for years if I take care of them.

You should look into how Lithium is mined and manufactured. Not very Earth or people friendly.

The 9-volt landfill issue pales in comparison.

And maybe we need to work on a recycling program for the common battery. Seriously.

 

[Hobie1dog]

You should look into how Lithium is mined and manufactured. Not very Earth or people friendly.

The 9-volt landfill issue pales in comparison.

And maybe we need to work on a recycling program for the common battery. Seriously.

+1

 

[anbhtblr]

Try lipos in 9v form factor (package). Their polarity is the same as standard 9v.

 

[Velocity Aerospace]

With the runcam split 4, can I just cut the 3 wires coming out and solder a new plug to the positive and neutral strands? Or us there a specific way I should power it? I've asked around m, and a lot of people are saying I can power the camera directly. I just don't want to mess it up

 

[Brainstormz123]

With the runcam split 4, can I just cut the 3 wires coming out and solder a new plug to the positive and neutral strands? Or us there a specific way I should power it? I've asked around m, and a lot of people are saying I can power the camera directly. I just don't want to mess it up

Yeah you can do that and power the positive and negative strands directly. There is a way to set it to record immediately on powerup and you can directly power it on the positive and neutral wires